


This To Shall Pass

by Creed Cascade (creedcascade)



Series: Life Ain't Easy Verse [3]
Category: Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Father-Son Relationship, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, M/M, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-03
Updated: 2012-01-03
Packaged: 2017-10-28 19:19:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/311332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creedcascade/pseuds/Creed%20Cascade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Twist’s Ma once told him that “This to shall pass.” Yes, the title is intentionally misspelled as I think John Twist and his Ma would spell it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This To Shall Pass

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Notes: Set after Part 19 of Life Ain’t Easy. John Twist is a mean, nasty son of a bitch. But, in canon he never ran Ennis off with a shot gun, even though he seemed to know what Ennis and Jack shared. To me, John almost seemed more upset that Jack “abandoned” his parent’s way of life and parents. I think he’s more complimented a character than we often give him credit for. This is just my take on him, though.
> 
> This is dedicated to all of those people who kept reading “Life Ain’t Easy” and enjoyed it. For those who commented, I promise I read and appreciated each and every word.

For all that John Twist mocked his son for being less of a man, his boy was a man. Not the man he wanted him to be, though still a man. His son was an arrogant, stubborn cuss who acted before he thought and probably could sweet talk his way outta hell. His boy was different than him in every way and John couldn’t understand him. Worst of all was, John was trying to accept how someone of his blood, his only son, could be queer.

John always thought that that queers were nancy boys who acted like women. Jack was a Mama’s boy, but John has seen Mama’s boy that weren’t queer before. His boy wasn’t physically weak. He liked to ride bulls and could throw a bale of hay just as far as any ranch hand. Lazy for sure, but that was a different kind of sin. Now that his boy was becoming a man, John could see he hadn’t been able to harass the queer out of him.

Jack and the Del Mar boy were fighting. He watched his son stomping around the barn and the latest victim of his temper tantrum was one of the barn cats who didn’t get out the way quick enough, getting its tail stepped on. The way they were acting reminded John of the time John had dared to bring his wife a bag of flour home for their first wedding anniversary. Eleanor never talked much to start with, but not hearing a word out of her had gotten unnerving and his wounded pride said that’s why he slept out in the barn for a week. That Sunday he went to church just to hear her sweet voice talk to Jesus in prayer, if not him.

John wasn’t even sure what in hell the boys were fighting about. For all he knew, their blood was boiling simply for the sake of fighting. They were both twenty now, but still acted like dumb kids and hot headed dumb kids to boot. They acted like any other boys their age, except for mooning over another boy part. Del Mar didn’t act queer at all except for the hidden looks he gave Jack when he thought no one was looking… as if Ennis couldn’t help being drawn to Jack. The Del Mar boy sure as hell didn’t seem the type to want to be queer. He was a hard worker, quiet, and humble. Besides from being queer, he was the kind of boy John had wanted for son. Instead, John had gotten a daydreaming, ungrateful, and lazy boy.

The one thing that John couldn’t wrap his head around was reconciling everything he knew about queers and everything he observed about these two. The preacher said it was a vile sin that was chosen by sissy men. But, watching these two boys, there was no reasoning why they would choose it. Being queer seemed like something that was somehow forced upon them when they were born.

John knew from experience that you fought hard with those you loved. Passion, obsession, and jealousy were the other side of love. John hadn’t just married Eleanor because she was the only girl his age for miles around in the lonely Wyoming countryside. He courted her because of a simple look she had given him one morning at church. A look that was both challenging and daring him to pursue her. For all his cussing and temper, the woman didn’t back down from him. She was strong and beautiful. That strange thing they called love was same reason he had beaten down some cowboys passing through town some twenty years ago who dared to whistle at his pretty wife.

The boys were fighting like newly weds. That was the puzzle that was wracking John’s brain. Queers weren’t supposed to be able to love. Jack and Ennis were everything contrary to what he thought queers were. Jack and Ennis weren’t sissies and they didn’t sleep around with a mess of other queers. Maybe part of that had to do with not being able to find other queers in a place where there were more sheep than men, but John wasn’t sure how queers found each other. He just knew that these two boys were in love and he suspected in spite of them being queer, they wouldn’t be chasing after anyone else. It was one of the few comforts John had.

The past few days, the boys were like two hot blooded bulls thrown into a field and banging heads. Merle had already thrown a bucket of cold water over them behind the house to break up a fist fight. Enjoying his biscuits with them glaring at each other from across the table was becoming difficult. Even Eleanor’s patience was getting short after she had to mend up their torn shirts.

If he was dealing with two bulls, there were three ways to stop them fighting John knew of… buckshot, castration, or separation. John snorted under his breath thinking that none of them was really an option. There was a reason he had always preferred dealing with animals to people. They just made more sense and were much easier to deal with. Even if he wanted to run Del Mar off, it wasn’t a smart choice. He would never admit it to anyone, not even Eleanor, but he needed Ennis and Jack around. Two young men with strong backs meant the ranch was able to make mortgage payments on time and things weren’t so tight anymore. Besides, Merle and her brats weren’t so bad, even if they were under foot all the time. They kept Eleanor happy and busy. His wife got the daughter she always wanted. If Del Mar left, so would the rest of the family Eleanor craved and he tolerated. The house had been too quiet when Jack left for the mountain, leaving them alone with only the bellowing cows for company.

In his life, John had come to learn that something can’t be changed and had to be lived with. It was a lesson he had tried to teach Jack. Wyoming was a bitch of a place to be born, but it was home. There should be no changing of that. He had hoped for a big brood and sons to carry on his name. With each baby they buried in the Twist family plot, John had to accept with a heavy heart that wasn’t possible. Being poor, well, that was hell of a bitch, but just scraping by wasn’t going to change that unless his cattle started shitting gold.

Jack had been born different. Born sickly like his dead siblings, he seemed to live just so he could enjoy being a nuisance. His boy had grown healthy, just to spite the doc who said he’d join the others. His constant crying had turned into constant babbling, then chattering. He was sensitive and a dreamer. His boy hadn’t pulled the pigtails of little girls at school. Instead John had caught him gawking a little too long at the rodeo cowboys. John had tried everything to change Jack. When Jack came home from Brokeback Mountain, John had even gotten down on his knees and prayed for Jack’s salvation. Seeing him with the Del Mar boy, he had seen that spark of life in him he had one day wished his son would have for a strong, pretty country girl. It was the first time John had prayed since Jack was born blue, praying like he did for each of his children, that this one would live. He might have sent up a small, quick prayer up after he snuck out to see Jack try to kill himself on the back of a bull at the nearest rodeo. He never gave his boy any advice since watching him, John could tell Jack was better at it than he had ever been. God wasn’t good for much, as far as John thought. ‘Do for yourself’ is a truth he always lived by. But, John figured the Lord was real enough to have given him the gift, and most times burden, that was Jack. John figured keeping the boy alive after he was born was mostly his job, especially since the boy seemed determined to get himself killed riding bulls and being queer.

But, John was starting to accept that Jack being queer couldn’t be changed. He was starting to accept that Jack and Ennis were born queer, as strange as that sounded to John. As wrong and strange as it was, they were in love. You can’t change the spots on calf after its born, so changing the boys was just something John knew wasn’t going to happen.

They kept their queer ways away from him for the most part. He had a passing thought that maybe they weren’t fit to have a part in raising Merle’s kids, especially her rowdy boy. But, Ennis was the only family Merle had to lean on. Besides, John reasoned being queer wasn’t something that could rub off, like chicken pox. If it was, he would have a danger of becoming queer and that wasn’t going to happen.

So, as the head of the family, he had to accept their faults. His cousin had a daughter who was deaf and mute, but they still loved her. Family had certain responsibilities to one another. John didn’t like what the boys were, but he could ignore it.

Them being queer might not change, but them being young fools John might be able to change. But, he wasn’t willing to wait for the passing of years to do it for him. Instead, he was ready to kick some sense into the boys. As the only real man in the family, it was his duty to do it, with their fighting riling everyone up.

His own Ma used to tell him when he got riled up about anything, especially something he couldn’t change that, “This to shall pass.” He thought it was from the Bible, or something, but didn’t really care. It was pretty good advice.

++++++

John’s gaze tracked Jack as he stomped past the horse’s stall. Picking up on his sour mood, the mare stomped nervously.

“Where’s that dog of yours?” John asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

Jack turned towards his father, mirroring the action. His face got even more sour, thinking about Damnit’s betrayal of sticking with Ennis. “With Ennis.”

“Surprised the beast hasn’t run off.”

Jack fussed with the bandana around his neck, circling it around as the knot rubbed over a bruise on the back of neck. Jack wasn’t sure he wasn’t talking about Ennis or their dog. “I’m surprised you haven’t shot him.”

“Thought about it,” John grunted. “Waste of my buckshot.”

Watching Jack fidget, he knew his boy was sulking. It was the same way he fidgeted when he was kid and didn’t get the new shotgun he wanted.

Jack turned away from his father, grabbing at the tack hanging from the wall. “I got chores.”

John strode over to Jack, liking that his boy didn’t back up. Jack didn’t wince when John reached out and grabbed Jack’s chin, turning his face this way and that. His left eye was slightly swollen, rimmed in black and blue bruising. “Nice shiner. Did ya at least give ‘im what for?”

Jack pulled away from his father’s touch, glaring at him. “None of your damn business.”

“My family. My ranch,” John emphasised every word. “My business.”

That obviously wasn’t exactly what Jack was excepting him to say. His eyes narrowed and he considered his father, waiting for a biting insult.

“Ya haven’t completely fucked up your chores lately,” John told him instead. It was as close to a compliment as he was ever going to get.

Both boys had been working tough, long hours by his side. Jack and Ennis worked like this place was there were own. It was part of what John had wanted from Jack all along. He just wanted Jack to give a damn and not act like his home and way of life was a living hell. Del Mar might queer, but at least he could work hard, with pride, and had finally made John’s only son give a damn.

Jack nervously shifted from foot to foot, trying to figure out what his father was up to. His brows drew together in concentration. Scowling at him like this, John was reminded of the way Eleanor seemed to have the ability to look into his soul. She wouldn’t listen to what he said or swore, but could decipher what he had left unsaid. His boy had the same uncanny ability to read people, though his yapping sure didn’t come from his Mama. A neighbour once joked that Jack’s daddy might have been the milk man, if they had a milk man, since he was so different from John. John had punched him for the insult.

Not wanting Jack’s head to get too big, John quickly added, “Though ya need to redo that sad piece of fence mending near the stone pile. Looks like you ‘n’ Del Mar were drunk when you did it.”

A mischievous smirk crossed Jack’s face. “We were.”

“Lazy assholes,” John responded automatically. He reached out and jabbed his finger into Jack’s chest. “Now, listen. I’m not gonna pussy foot around. You two been fightin’ like polecats. Stop it. We have ladyfolk ‘n’ youngens around here. No way for a man to act.” Jack’s mouth gapped open a little when John called him a man. He looked him straight in the eyes. “Whatever happened, get over it. Some things can’t be changed, so you jus’ live with ‘em. I sure as hell don’t like everything…” He gave him a pointed look. “But, I live with it.”

Jack continued to gap at him and looked at him most curious like. It was the same kind of look Eleanor gave him when he gave her cheap dime store locket shaped like a heart for their second anniversary. He put some dirt in it from her folk’s ranch, telling her that way she couldn’t get lonely for home anymore. John knew her look then, and Jack’s now, were a look of surprise. Just like he had then, John turned and started to walk away, uncomfortable with the showing of emotion. Real men didn’t do such things.

Back then, John had just about escaped the kitchen with Eleanor still clutching the locket, when he kept his eyes locked on the door and muttered to her, “Couldn’t have married better.”

Now, he didn’t turn around either, but before he stormed out of the barn, he muttered to his son, “Del Mar’s not the worst ya could’ve brought home.”

John didn’t wait for an answer.

END.


End file.
